


The last one to know

by Melime



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Post-Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 11:53:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5496119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melime/pseuds/Melime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While she held a cloth to Matt's wound, trying to contain the bleeding until the nurse arrived, she was able to keep her mind away from what she'd seen, but now the urgency of the situation had passed and her thoughts were spiraling out of control.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The last one to know

**Author's Note:**

  * For [geckoholic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/gifts).
  * Translation into Português brasileiro available: [A última a saber](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5612638) by [Melime GreenLeaf (Melime)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melime/pseuds/Melime%20GreenLeaf)



> Rated T for some vague injuries and violence, just to be sure. I couldn't decide between two of the prompts, so I ended up merging them in one here.

Karen was out the door as soon as Claire guaranteed her she didn’t need the help. While she held a cloth to Matt's wound, trying to contain the bleeding until the nurse arrived, she was able to keep her mind away from what she'd seen, but now the urgency of the situation had passed and her thoughts were spiraling out of control.

The masked man. Daredevil. _Matt_.

It didn’t make any sense, nothing about the situation made any sense. If she hadn’t found him herself, she would never have believed it. But there he was, bleeding on the floor of their office, trying to get to the phone, with his mask half ripped from his face, whomever did that to him long gone through the open window. He tried to prevent her from seeing, not an easy task when trying to contain the bleeding from a bullet wound, but just a glimpse of his face was enough for her to realize what was happening.

She went through stages while helping him put pressure on the wound and call the number he instructed. It’s impossible. There must be another explanation as to why he’s dressed like this. Why haven’t he trusted her with this? By the time she left, she was beginning to think it would make sense, if it wasn’t so impossible. She had thought it was odd that the masked man covered his eyes, but if he was blind that would explain it. Except for the part where this would mean that the crime fighter who did all those things was blind, and she couldn’t wrap her head around that.

Unless he had special abilities. That seemed like the logical conclusion, in a world after the Battle of New York. Nobody knew how many gifted people there were, or for how long they had those abilities. She always assumed Matt's independence was a result of the years he had to get used to his lack of sight, but now that she thought about it, the signs were there. Times when he seemed to have heard things from too far away, when his reflexes seemed too sharp.

Then it hit her. The accident, the time when Matt was hit by a bus, or so Foggy said. Their fight. The threat to their friendship that was too personal to talk about. Foggy knew. That woman she had never met before knew. She was the only one out of the loop. The last one to know. She was angry at them, even if she didn’t know if she had the right to be. She was also keeping secrets from them, but somehow this seemed more serious, maybe because of how many people were in on it when she was excluded, even though this would also influence her.

Karen needed all night to think about what had happened. She was hurt, and felt as if they didn’t trust her, but she wouldn’t let this get in the way of their friendship. She saw what happened to both Matt and Foggy when they fought over this, and figured nothing good could come of concentrating on the fact he lied to her. If she wanted to be a part of this now, and remain a part of Nelson & Murdock, she needed to forgive him now.

When Karen got to Matt's apartment, Claire was there, saying she transported Matt there and was keeping an eye on him to make sure he wouldn’t try to go fight crime and end up bursting his stitches. That spoke to a familiarity to this other side of Matt that Karen didn’t want to think about. She didn’t want to blame someone she had just met for the fact he didn’t trust her.

She barely talked to Matt that morning. He kept slipping in and out of conscience, awake for a few minutes at a time, but always tired because of the blood loss. There was only so much Claire could do without hospital resources, and in his case, not having blood to be transplanted meant he was feeling weaker than he would be with proper treatment. She admired Claire for what she was able to do with the resources she had, and for being so willing to help Matt. When he was awake, he tried to convince her to forget what she saw, and when that didn’t work, apologized for keeping this secret, claiming she would be safer if she didn’t know. She wondered how he would react of she told him about shooting a man in cold blood, but she kept _her_ secret. Matt was a good man, he could be a vigilante, but he wasn’t a murderer, she was sure of that.

She started talking to Claire more out of curiosity than anything else. This was someone who had an insight to Matt's other life and seemed to know him well, and Matt's short intervals of conscience gave them nothing if not time.

They had more in common than Karen would have imagined, both knew the hardships of trying to help people in a world that seemed rigged against it, and how hard it was having self-sacrificing friends. Claire was surprised in finding that not only Matt, but Foggy also had trouble prioritizing his physical integrity. Karen wondered if she was like that too, if her recklessness in trying to expose Union Allied and Wilson Fisk was a different form of the same issue, if she caused Ben as much stress and worry as Matt and Foggy managed to cause her and Claire. Maybe that was the reason they all went along so well, an unhealthy dose of selflessness and too big of a desire to help others. A flaw as much as a quality, it not more so. Claire told her about trying to get away from this, but not resisting the urge to help, and the worry that not knowing caused her. Maybe she was like them too, even if that wasn’t good for her.

Karen wished she hadn’t found out this way, that Matt had chosen to trust her, but she was now part of this, and they had to help each other. All they had was each other.


End file.
